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20 November 2014

Sometimes I think that we here in Israel pay too much attention to the skewed coverage the local events receive from the main Western media outlets. Sometimes it seems to me that we are harboring unreasonable expectations from a reasonable world that just doesn't care what our expectations are - and why should it?

Of course, the yesterday's (November 18, 2014 for the record) headlines and contents of some senior members of the media world were somewhat bewildering. Starting with the now famous CNN's first headline:

Clearly it was an unintentional gaffe, created by a poorly informed editor, who wouldn't know a mosque (or a synagogue) from Red Lobster. But then came the second version:

Doesn't smell like an innocent gaffe anymore, does it? More like a deliberate... and then, again, came a change (or a new twist, if you will).

Looks almost like reporting on results of an especially frisky football game, quite multicultural, isn't it? And the usual CNN (and BBC) penchant of setting the words "terror attack" in quotation marks. OK, later CNN has corrected that one after a while, doing "justice" to the two Palestinian "martyrs".

Of course, CBC tried to outdo CNN on that day, with its fabulous entry:

Mm... still not quite up to its big bro, but showing promise.

BBC came with its own contribution, from a bit more sophisticated angle. Unfortunately I haven't saved the original, so the cached version from Yahoo UK will have to do:

As you can see, to serve their unshakable political beliefs, BBC folks moved the synagogue in question to East Jerusalem. Of course, for a reason: that way they could explain ("no, we do not justify or condone such acts, we only explain them") the murder as a spontaneous act of freedom fight.

Then comes the Guardian... yes, I know that placing the Guardian in the same league as the above mentioned senior members of the media world is a bit reaching. But the Guardian "methodology" deserves a separate mention:

The website of British newspaper The Guardian ran a story about the attack from Reuters. The wire dispatch the agency sent included the headline 'Palestinians kill four in Jerusalem synagogue attack' and led with the sentence: ''Two Palestinians armed with a meat cleaver and a gun killed four people in a Jerusalem synagogue on Tuesday before being shot dead by police…."However The Guardian changed their headline to "Four worshippers killed in attack on Jerusalem synagogue" and in their lead, they also excised any reference to Palestinians, publishing: "Two men armed with axes, knives and a pistol have killed four Israelis and wounded several others in a Jerusalem synagogue …"

The normally happily multicultural Guardian for some intangible reasons shuns the mention of the murdered and of the murderers' national identity. Ain't it strange?

The last but not the least in the litany of complaints about the intentional on unintentional slips of tongue and slips of finger is to be CBS (thanks to Peter that pointed to the following):

The two Palestinian attackers died in a shootout with police. It happened at a contested religious site in Jerusalem.

There is, of course, nothing “contested” about the Har Nof synagogue where the terror attack took place. Nor is there anything “contested” about Har Nof itself, a Jewish neighborhood in the western side of Jerusalem.

Well, looking at all of the above, the best way to summarize it was found by Francine Robin - "My tribute to CNN, that exemplar of accurate, unbiased, thoroughly investigative news journalism":

Quite. So let me offer a refreshing and straightforward alternative to all that double speak and the special, biased brand of political correctness of the Western media. Let's go to our cousins the Palestinians for a dose of fresh air. Here my Facebook friend, Dave McAvoy, explains the Palestinian TV clip (below):

This is the opening 40 seconds of a news report on Palestinian TV - this is the channel run and controlled by the Palestinian Authority - Mahmoud Abbas & Fatah.

This isn't Hamas' channel (Al Aqsa) or Jazeera, or Hizbullah's channel (Al Manar). This is the channel representing a side in these peace talks which Kerry & Obama are in a hurry to start. Again the thugs who went into a synagogue with meat cleavers and were killed by police are described as martyrs - martyrs of the 72 virgins go straight to paradise variety.The language used here does not sound like that of a party which seriously wants peace or wants to reach any sort of agreement - and notice how it contrasts with what it says in English.The news editors in this channel have to either run everything through the PA's Ministry of Information - or rather are told what to say by this ministry. No different to Syrian state TV news being dictated to by the Ministry of Information in Damascus. There is no editorial independence. None. This is as party line as it gets.

That, of course, a day after Mahmoud Abbas, the two-faced Palestinian "President" condemned the massacre. Now you knowwhere to go if you want to get some undiluted, prime quality hate, unencumbered by the stale and smelly burqa of political correctness.

The "East Jerusalem" canard is somewhat understandable when you consider that none of these pretty faces are backgrounded on anything more complicated than their hairstyles and they are sheep who follow each other around, wagging their tails behind them.

An extrapolation of ignorance on top of ignorance mixing up the previous events. Institutional memory in the media is only about three days. Which is the way cBS has long operated. It might have been worse if the famous liar Dan Rather was still their chief honcho.

In my experience (I am a recovering American journalist) most voters pay no attention to the media but get their info from their local party leaders and candidates. The Reps and Progs alike distrust the media, though the Progs should feel more at home with the likes of NPR and cBS. Since Fox has been consistently No. 1 in the ratings for many years now (and CNN dead last), you should worry (if you're inclined to worry) more about what they do or don't do.

Looks like it. As for the East Jerusalem canard - I dont' know, after all it takes some initiative just to add "East Jerusalem" to the text. Someone must have inspired the addition, you know. Just because I totally agree with your description of the anchors, someone must feed them stuff like that.

The US MSM has pretty well burned their creditability down to the ground. Even the very liberal friends I have now make unsolicited comments about how bad they are. With Obama the Dems and the MSM really did think he was going to take them to the promised land (yes Snoopy to some there is more than one) of perpetual power and relevance. Now though it is a vision mostly of ashes in the mouth (phraseology I picked up from hour prophet guys, very handy) for they are starting to see that they are under the bus and Obama (and his handlers) cared for nothing but themselves. Sennacherib laughs, for they will do more damage and there will be more sound and fury, but they are dying and are starting to realize it.

A pretty bleak prognosis from a king, if you ask me, and that "ashes in the mouth" is surely an Assyrian shtick. Jewish shtick was to place some ashes judiciously on one's head - a bald one for preference, at least if you believe the Italian paintings...

But yes, with two years of danger-free run a POTUS could accomplish a lot...

I, Sennacherib, stand corrected, it has been many years. The ashes was along the lines of dirt eating, but the peasants never really did believe the "it's an important part of your daily diet, necessary vitamins, minerals, etc" subjects can be a suspicious bunch. Never seen a bald headed Jew, but of course it has been 2700 yrs.